When movie operations go wrong

Is that...? It can't be... A bonio...?
A still from Freakdog Photograph: PR

Spurned schoolgirls road-tested their amputation skills on Clint Eastwood's Civil War soldier in Don Siegel's The Beguiled. Clint's wounded Yankee takes refuge in an all girl's school in the South, only to find himself recast as the dormitory sex toy. Sounds swell but - wait! - there are downsides ... Photograph: Kobal

A late scene in The X Files: I Want to Believe showed a botched bit of stem-cell surgery. The plan: to graft the head of a Russian Mafiosa onto the body of a pretty FBI agent. The result: Mulder and Scully's meddling means that the FBI agent remains in one piece, while the head of the Russian is left gawping gently on the table. We couldn't actually find a snap of that - probably because it's classified. Still, here's one of M&S's numerous early encounters with medical mishaps. Photograph: PR

Poor Hayden Christenson in Awake. Not only does he have to have heart transplant surgery at the age of just 26, but he's also one of those few people who end up remaining mentally conscious (though physically paralysed) throughout the op. And then he overhears that the surgeon is plotting to murder him. AND that he's sleeping with his lovely new wife Jessica Alba. It never rains but it pours, eh? Photograph: Public domain

Hedwig and the Angry Inch: the funkiest sex change op gone awry ever. No matter, at least this botched bit of jiggery-pokery provides the material for an electrifying pop career on the chicken-in-a-basket circuit of the American midwest. Small comfort, we realise. Photograph: PR

James Coburn starred as hot shot Boston pathologist Peter Carey (not the novelist) in The Carey Treatment, a drama about an illegal abortion apparently gone wrong. But, when Carey digs deeper, it turns out stolen morphine, blackmail attempts, and "a mysterious and dangerous masseur" may really be to blame. Who could have guessed? Photograph: Kobal

When an ambitious male nurse impersonates a recently dead doc, a lot of ops will go wrong, very quickly. Don't blame Paul McGann in Paper Mask. Blame NHS bureaucracy, fat cat executives ... something like that. Photograph: Kobal

"Where's the rest of me?" wails a startled Ronald Regan in Kings Row. Answer: lopped off by a sadistic, morally-righteous doctor who took exception to his playboy ways. Lucky Calum Best wasn't around at the time. Photograph: Kobal

In Les Yeux Sans Visage, the beloved daughter of Dr Génessier has been horribly disfigured in a car crash. So, ever the devoted dad, he kidnaps young girls, removes their faces and tries to graft them on without success. It's the thought that counts. Photograph: Kobal

Experimental serums cause all sorts of havoc in the nascent NHS drama White Corridors. Frankly, we'd be disappointed if they didn't. Photograph: Kobal

Here's the dilemma facing blind violinist Jessica Alba (clearly a repeat victim of ops gone wrong). Should she stay fiddling about in her world of perpetual blackness? Or she should accept the corneas donated to her by "a Mexican witch"? Choose wisely, Miss Alba. This photo, by the way, comes from the original Hong Kong version. Photograph: PR

"Imagine your life hangs by a thread. Imagine your body hangs by a wire. Imagine you're not imagining." That's the tagline for Coma, a cracking Michael Crichton black market organs drama. Imagine Michael Douglas scrubbing up as the dodgy doc, with his cloying bedside manner and faint air of seediness. And whoops, here he comes ... Photograph: Kobal

Try a little Exquisite Tenderness with this madcap horror about a deranged ex-doctor who teaches Charles Dance not to meddle. Malcolm McDowell co-stars as one Dr Stein, a man who simply refuses to admit the existence of the Hippocratic Oath. Photograph: Kobal

Extreme Measures was a grisly but underrated re-fry of Coma. Shiver at the prospect of floppy-haired Hugh Grant playing a well-meaning doctor ("Whoops! Oh gosh, sorry about that"). The tremble when you realise that Gene Hackman is actually Even Worse. Photograph: Kobal

Would you admit yourself to any hospital that was run by giggling Lars Von Trier? Even if he was wearing a tuxedo? Nope, not a lot going right in this bit of surgery in The Kingdom, a supernatural surgical riot made for Danish TV. Photograph: Kobal

Word of advice. If you ever come down with appendicitis in Baden-Württemberg, please be sure to steer clear of the Heidelberg medical school. According to the 2000 thriller Anatomie, it is run by a wicked secret society and specialises in operations gone very wrong indeed. Don't say we didn't warn you. Photograph: PR